Effects of mechanical activation and chlorine ion on nanoparticle forsterite formation

This paper reports the positive effects of chlorine ion on the forsterite formation rate. The influence of mechanical activation of talc and magnesium carbonate mixture on the formation of forsterite structure was studied in the presence of chlorine ion. Mechanical activation increased the contact surface area of the reacting phases as a consequence of intensively reduced particle size, which is very important in the case of diffusion-controlled reactions. Besides, the presence of chlorine ion affected the forsterite formation rate following annealing. The single-phase nanostructure forsterite powder with a crystallite size of about 20 nm was obtained by 5 h of mechanical activation and subsequent annealing at 1000 °C for 2 min in the presence of the chlorine ion.